Petshark: Talking Stick

Sharks fans thought we had it bad when the Sharks embarrassed themselves and us by losing 3-0 to the Coyotes. That was bad, but it could have been worse. Coyotes do stuff like that all the time, sneak up on you and steal your chickens (or your cats, or your toy dogs) when you’re not looking. Imagine being a Wings fan and watching the Blues… oh. Right, done that too. Some Wings fans are pretty mad about that. Like, really pissed off. I wonder if Mr. Babcock is also pissed off.

Ok, well, what about Stars fans, however many there are? They have to be pretty angry about a 6-0 loss to the Panthers. Sure, the Panthers are on a streak of road wins but still, it’s the Panthers, and Dallas has forgotten they were doing amazingly well. They’ve started dropping games like pennies in a wishing well. So it could be worse.

Or, it could be worse like Minny has it, their last three games costing them a player each. Yi-eeeek

It could certainly be worse. This is important to keep in mind as the Sharks get ready to play Detroit of the angry fans and pointless stars and humiliating loss to St. Louis yesterday.

It could be worse but now it must be better. Why? Because, you shouldn’t put off until January what you can win right now.

A couple of days ago I bumbled across a sermon someone was giving on the radio, or maybe she was just talking about giving a sermon, or maybe it was a sermon in which she talked about other sermons she gave…. I don’t look for sermons on the radio, but sometimes I will pause on them. It was essentially “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Of course she said it better, with illustrative stories about little kids and silver gift boxes and such. Made sense to me. So I’ll give that a try.

Todd McLellan said that loss to the Yotes was a teachable one. That’s good to hear. The Sharks had a long practice on Monday, used two sheets of ice Tuesday. They were back out there this morning, busy, busy busy.

“Anytime you’re out on the East Coast and you get practice time, it’s never the same,” McLellan said. “So this is our first extended period of practice. It’s good timing. You’d like to have it about every 20 games.” -Working the Corners

The team seemed in fairly good spirits, not giddy jovial but cheerful. I’m sure they have a good reason, aside from the usual one that they’re getting paid gobs of money to do something they presumably like doing a lot anyway. There’s that, but maybe they also feel good about their chances of being better next time out.

They will have to be. The Red Wings are in a similar circumstance, needing to be better, by a lot,right now.

The thing about saying something nice is that it could be construed as a jinx. There’s at least one cultural tradition that says praise draws the attention of evil spirits, so you should always say negative things if you want to protect the ones you care about.

That makes listing the positives kind of dangerous. I’ll just address things that are less jinx-worthy like how much more consistent the lines are right now. Even the adjustments are consistent: switch Paddy and Couture back and forth to suit the occasion, flip flop White with Vlasic as needed. I’m glad the third line has been pretty stable for a few games now. With such unlike pieces, time is needed to get the line working as a unit.

Familiarity is good, usually. Evil spirits, listen up: the penalty kill is looking familiar in that way that breeds contempt. There are too many of the same guys out there as were out there last season, spending their precious energy doing stuff the team needs someone else to do:

“It’s not what we planned to do, but when it didn’t go well – and I’m not fingering the young players that couldn’t adjust and in fact it was some of the older players. But you have a tendency to go back to the well and that’s what we’ve done again.” -Working the Corners

Maybe the team isn’t going in circles. Maybe it’s a spiral, the view looks similar but it isn’t quite the same place. I miss Scotty Nichol.

Winter has finally arrived in Nor Cal, the evenings cool and the mornings so nippy I have to wear gloves. One of the ways I’ve found to cope with cold weather is to go somewhere colder. When you come home it feels warm. I’m headed to Vancouver in the morning for a convention, not just to make Nor Cal seem warmer. I hope to be all landed and in the hotel by the time the Sharks game starts. I hope. I assume nothing when it comes to air travel.

I thought it would be easy to squeeze in a Canucks game since I was scheduled to be there for four days, but no, I had to extend the trip by a day to do that. Of course I did it, no idea when I’m likely to be back in Vancouver. But it’s just so like the Canucks to leave town as soon as I get there. One more reason to not like them.

About Petshark: Talking Stick

Native of Northern California. Hockey fan since 1998... sort of... there's a hiatus in there that I still can't explain.

I want to know about anything and everything related to the sport and the spectacle. I watch, I react, I write it down.

My interest in the Sharks was initially a matter of geographic convenience and regional loyalty because that seemed to be how it worked. I had no prior interest (at all-- AT ALL) in professional sports of any kind. When I met hockey, it might have set off a chain reaction of general sports fandom. It hasn't, I don't think it will. At all.

Since then, that interest developed into full blown (mostly sort of usually almost completely) exclusive loyalty to the Sharks.

I started blogging a couple years ago on wordpress. I still occasionally put things there that I don't think fit here because they are not about the Sharks. Wherever my words wander, here on Kuklas Korner, they will (usually) hang on to a teal thread.

I can be found in cyberspace on Twitter @petshark47, or emailed at talkingstick@petshark.net